


A Ring of Gold

by thingsishouldntbedoing



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Time Loop, Time Travel, Young!Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:49:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3588528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsishouldntbedoing/pseuds/thingsishouldntbedoing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Have we met?” Harry murmured. He could feel that Eggsy knew him, that there was an easy familiarity in the stranger’s mannerisms, but the answers escaped him. “How do you know my name?”</p><p>It's 1984 and the world Harry Hart lives in is about to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ring of Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Кольцо](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12749952) by [Molly_Malone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly_Malone/pseuds/Molly_Malone)



> You can find me on tumblr @ [jocunditea](http://jocunditea.co.vu).

He hadn’t expected that his training would lead him to Beirut in the middle of summer, but here he was - cringing against the sweat dripping down his face and collecting in the collar of his fatigues, with the stiffness of disuse in his limbs.

“William?” He tuned his shortwave and shifted his shoulders, peering through the sight of his rifle. “Fuck.”  
  
His spotter hadn’t shown, one of the three remaining recruits, and, tapping his fingers against his rifle bolt, he felt a subtle panic building in his chest. He licked his lips, desperate for moisture other than his own sweat, and locked a cartridge into place. He would have to shoot without one.  
  
“Hart, you got this?” A woman’s voice came over his shortwave.  
  
“Don’t worry, Peggy, we’re clear.” He licked his lips again and lined up his shot. “I’m taking it.”  
  
“Target in sight.” He knew where his fellow trainee would be, her hair tucked beneath a scarf as she passed between visitors to the embassy. “He’s turning, Harry,” her voice quieted.  
  
“I’ve got him. Don’t fuckin’ worry-” He took a breath, released it, leveled his scope, and pulled the trigger.

A burst of pride flared up in his chest when his target dropped, blood and grey matter hanging in the air like some sickly mist.   
  
“Get the hell out of there, Peggy,” he said as the visitors began to panic, realizing they were now in the presence of a dead body.  
  
“I’m going!” she answered breathlessly.  
  
“Harry!” He jerked around, ripping the revolver from his hip. He was vulnerable, sprawled on his back with his gun directed between his knees. “Harry, run!” William warned.  
  
“What’s going o-”  
  
“Get down!” A voice cried as he watched the fuses light in slow motion, his brain not fully registering what was happening.  

_Am I going to die_?  


Hurried fingers, a soft voice with affection on its words. He swam between consciousness and the edge of death, minutely aware of his surroundings. Someone was telling him to stay calm, saying his name, stroking his hair back as he fought through a fever.

Someone pressed a kiss to his forehead, pressed prayers to his skin. Someone trickled cool water over his chest, shielded him from the afternoon sun, braced something beneath his neck. 

The return to himself came in increments, slow and gradual, creeping along his skin like chilled fingers. Pain expanded and bloomed in every part of him, dull and pervasive, until he tried to move and all of the pain centered to the left side of his body.

A hand caught the back of his neck and tilted his head, but his first instinct to fight was halted by a gentle voice. "Take a drink," it was saying to him through the haze, like hearing underwater. The mouth of a cool canteen was pressed to his lips and water, sweet and refreshing, spilled onto his tongue.

"Mm... Where am I?" He opened his eyes and his vision swam before focusing on the figure above him. 

"Still Beirut." The man moved, sitting back on his haunches. "Bleedin' hot here, yeh?"

"You're the... man from before?" Harry tried to sit up, but was immediately stopped by a sharp pain in his side. 

"Whoa! Settle down. You took some shrap, don't move too much." He flashed a sheepish smile, but Harry saw his eyes flicker over him. 

"Who're you?" He rasped.

"The man who saved your life."

"That's not an answer," Harry groaned and sank back against the blanket beneath him.

"Just call me Galahad." The man polished the sight of Harry’s rifle and rested the barrel against his knee. 

"Galahad? But that's..." This had to be a trick, right? Or had he failed the tests? Had he failed and this was his punishment? To be rescued by the new Galahad? But he didn't recognize this man and he was dressed to the nines to boot.

"Eh... Maybe it's better if you call me Eggsy, yeah?" 

"Eggsy." The word felt foreign on his tongue. "You're the new Galahad?" He screwed up his face and tried to concentrate, tried to focus. "Fuck..."

"Be careful, Harry. You're really arsed."  

He remembered the explosion, the blowback, the feeling of a body landing hard on top of his, and the flap of a jacket in the resulting gust. A jacket that was now braced beneath his head if Eggsy's rolled shirt sleeves were anything to go by.

"What happened?”  
  
“Hezbollah got hold of the other recruit. Strapped a bomb to him and detonated it next to you.” Eggsy rose and walked to the window of the room they were in, pushing aside the curtains to reveal taped glass. “God damned lucky you survived,” he said in an undertone.  
  
“Lucky you were there… whoever you may be.” Harry let his head sink into the rich fabric beneath his neck.  
  
“I told you. My name is Eggsy.” He lined up his sight, ticking the scope. “Good rifle, this.”

The first day was a long one. Harry faded in and out, conscious enough to recognize that Eggsy was a capable nurse. He brought soups and fruits from the grocers, at one point he even returned with a keffiyeh bound around his head to shield him from the sun, and from what Harry could tell he spoke multiple dialects of Arabic.

The second day he learned that Eggsy slept fitfully. He woke to the soft murmurs of sleep talk and his savior tossing against the dust soaked floor they slept on. His eyelids fluttered and twisted, his lips curving around unspoken words, and a pang of sadness drove into him like a railroad spike. Harry was not much younger than this man... Was this how he slept as well?

"Harry," Eggsy murmured. "Harry please." His knuckles blanched fingers curled into a fist.

"Eggsy?" He reached out, shifting his weight onto his elbow to reach out to him. "Hey it's okay I'm right here." 

A hand caught his wrist, power surging through the fingers, and Harry thought he might break his arm, but instead Eggsy's eyes shot open. There was a pause before recognition spilled into them, a pause in which Harry very nearly saw himself reflected in the glassy blue of Eggsy's eyes. 

"You were having a nightmare," Harry said.

"Did I... Say anything?" Eggsy asked, releasing his wrist and running trembling fingers through his own hair.  

"No. Nothing." Harry slumped back down, having expended his energy. "How are my wounds?" He closed his eyes and bore down the pain that rose when Eggsy peeled away the batting of his bandages. 

"You're tough. You'll make it." He thought he heard Eggsy say "you have to make it" but he couldn't be sure. 

The third day he woke to a cold sweat and the pressure of a full bladder. Eggsy was nowhere to be found, likely on one of his trips into the city. Eggsy had been careful not to let Harry move on his own but at this point nothing short of the Apocalypse was going to keep Harry Hart from taking a piss. 

He rolled onto his side and shoved himself up with his right arm, careful to keep the pressure off the left side of his body, and practically crawled to the wc.

He felt a little ashamed of himself, groaning openly when he finally managed to stand, and his pride was more than bruised by the time hehad relieved himself, one hand braced against the crumbling plaster behind the toilet. He had always been the strongest candidate, the leader, the capable assassin, yet he was missing what Eggsy had - some spark of mischief. 

He wished he could put his finger on it, but his breathing had become ragged from exertion and he felt the world spin beneath his feet. If his pride was bruised before he was certain that falling face first into his own urine wasn't going to help.

"Whoa!" A pair of gentle arms caught him before he could fall. Eggsy. "Gave me a fright, mate, thought I'd lost you again."

"I had to pee." Again, that was all he registered. How could Eggsy have lost him once?

"Come on you stubborn bastard." Before he knew it Harry was back on the blankets and Eggsy was checking his wounds with all the pomp of a mother hen.

"Where have you been going?" Harry asked, voice nothing more than a rasp.

"Out. Hey you know if you ever meet a guy named Lee Unwin..." He hesitated and Harry tried his best to focus beyond the pain.

"Yeah?" Curiosity had his head clearing.

"Uh... Never mind..." Eggsy's brows knitted down. 

They didn't speak much the rest of the day. 

The fourth day was easier. He was lucid for most of it, and the question of Lee Unwin still hung in his mind, but it was relatively enjoyable. Eggsy talked about stealing cars in his youth and about his mother and sister, little pieces of information that Harry stored away for later, and Harry told him about his training and what he planned to do for Kingsman when he became Galahad.

"You're so certain you'll be Galahad," Eggsy chuckled.

"I'm the best candidate." Harry scowled, pressing a hand to the healing wounds in his side.

"You are. You're going to do great things for Kingsman." Eggsy scratched at his growing beard, grumbling under his breath.

Harry had begun to learn that when Eggsy had let something slip he avoided conversation for the rest of the day, so they remained in relative silence for the rest of the night.

“Where’s your rendezvous?” Eggsy asked during the afternoon of the fifth day, eating tomatoes from a can with his pocket knife with tendrils of blond hair clinging to his brow.  
  
“East of the city. If we got into trouble we were to-”  
  
“Lay low. Yeah.” Eggsy nodded and popped another tomato into his mouth. “Mm nuffin’ be’er’n canned tomatoes.”  
  
“Are you going to try to get me to the rendezvous?” Harry narrowed his eyes, propping himself up with a grunt. He was filthy, sweat soaked and still bloodied from his run in with the bomb, but for once he couldn’t be arsed to care. “If you’re really a Kingsman you know we’re not supposed to accept help.”  
  
“And will anyone know? Consider this a repayment for all that you will do in the future.” Eggsy cocked Harry’s rifle and slid the bolt into place. “If your spotter was worth a shit they wouldn’t have been able to break him. They must know the path to your exit. They’ll have it covered… so I’ll cover _you_.” He turned and rested the rifle against his knee. “But I’ll need this.”  
  
“It’s three miles to the edge of the city!”  
  
“And I’m a damned good shot,” Eggsy grinned. “Take the shotgun with you. Anyone gets close enough to hurt you? Blow them.”  
  
Nearly a week he had been with the man who had rescued him. Five days and yet he’d learned nothing more than what his eyes and ears could tell. 

He didn’t know what Eggsy’s game was, or why he seemed so adamant to help him, but he didn’t want to question it for too long. Late into the night of the fifth day he sat, nerves soothed by a cigarette clutched in his fingers, and watched his savior doze. 

Eggsy wore his hair short, close cropped on the sides, and when he was tired he ran long fingers through it. He had worn a Windsor knot in his silk tie, expertly coiled, and a signet ring on his right pinkie before they both had been pocketed. His pinstriped suit, as deep a blue as it was bright, made his eyes shine like the ocean in the Lebanese sun. Finely dressed, finely trained, fine bones beneath drawn facial features - yet his accent slipped into just this side of Cockney when he was feeling cocky or particularly stressed. And on his left hand, golden and bright in the fading sun, whose light crept in between the curtains and the windowsill, was a ring. A ring he toyed with when he was speaking, sliding it in circles as if to screw it off. It was unfamiliar, new, a novelty, and it glinted now when Eggsy lifted his hand to brush away some unseen touch.  
  
He was a figure of beauty, and if Harry had remembered to bring it, he might have whipped out his polaroid and snapped a picture of him, a man with a mysterious past and a title that Harry knew to be empty.  
  
“You’re staring,” Eggsy said through stilled lips.  
  
“Shit, sorry.” Harry leant against the wall behind him, unfolding his left arm from where he’d had it pressed against his wounds.  
  
“It’s fine.” A flash of caribbean beneath dark lashes took his breath away. “What time is it?”  
  
“Half past seven.” Harry glanced at his watch.  
  
“‘Bout time you get goin’.” Eggsy stretched luxuriously and ruffled his hair. “I’ll cover you.”  
  
Harry wanted to argue, wanted to press back and bicker, but he restrained himself, “Yessir.” He dragged himself to his feet and adjusted his shotgun against his hip. “Will you be-” He turned to look and found Eggsy already spread on his stomach, rifle in place.  
  
“Get going,” Eggsy gestured. “I’ll be watching you the whole way.”  
  
Harry lingered, wanting to say something - a _thanks_ might have been a good idea - but instead he bit his tongue and limped out of the building.  
  
He wished his shortwave hadn’t been lost. It would have been good to know exactly what he was up against, but he would have to rely on Eggsy’s guidance - tensed and waiting for the first sniper shot.

He moved between buildings, careful to avoid narrow alleys and sharp curves that could hide combatants, following the hastily drawn map that Eggsy had given him. A creeping suspicion had begun - the sensation of being watched, of eyes on the back of his neck, had begun to slide its sickly fingers up the back of his neck.  
  
When a man stopped in his path Harry made the decision that he would learn Arabic. He wasn’t going to be lost and confused in a foreign country without speaking the language ever again, it wasn’t as if he could pull the trigger without asking what was going on - but before he could even attempt to explain what was happening a bullet collided with his harasser's head. 

He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a fight start that quickly, the sound of the rifle shot like a starting gun at the races - several members of the militia they had been dealing with converging on him at once.

Harry shifted the weight of his shotgun against his hip and swung the muzzle up. He took the brunt of the kick to his shoulder and whirled around, launching a buckshot into another assailant before flipping the gun off his fingertips, swinging it like a club to smash the next skull that approached - only to find it being blasted into a fine mist.  
  
He counted the seconds between impact and sound, finding that his savior was on the move, and took a steadying breath - even with one arm available Harry Hart was lethal and he knew it.

“Harry! _Run!”_ He looked up to find Eggsy sprinting from rooftop to rooftop above him. His stomach coiled around something slimy and cold - fear, he would later realize - as Eggsy leapt, suspended in the air for the briefest moment before he slid out of sight and sent a well positioned sniper flying to his death.  
  
He didn’t need to be told twice, grabbing up an AK-47 from one of the bodies and starting to run. Between the desperate ache in his side and the heat, even in the relatively cool evening, he was running on fumes - he needed to get out fast.  
  
There was little to do besides barrel through what few people had yet to clear off the streets, leaping over a low wall with his good arm and focusing on the pounding of the blood in his ears and the adrenaline in his veins. Like this he was powerful, like this he was a prize horse in the races, all speed and strength that pain couldn’t touch. He registered the gunshots from Eggsy’s rifle as sound but paid them no mind as he made it to the edge of the city.  
  
“Look out!” He turned just in time to see Eggsy drop from the second story, landing feet first against the shoulders of a man that had emerged with a semi-automatic in his arms. “Come on!”  
  
Harry’s breath hitched when Eggsy’s firm hand pressed between his shoulderblades, feeling life returning to his muscles at the touch, and he did as he was told. “The LZ is 15 clicks out! We’ll never make it!” 

“We will! Get in!” Eggsy nearly threw him into a Jeep. “I _will_ get you out of here. I won’t let you die, Harry.” He said it with such determination that Harry couldn't help the spark of affection that burst in his chest.

He wanted to say thank you, clutching the offered canteen numbly, but instead he merely studied Eggsy’s face as they drove, too exhausted from their fight out of the city to think or do much else.  

“I know I’m pretty, no need to stare,” Eggsy said without looking.  
  
“You always know, huh?” Harry poured water into his mouth.  
  
“A Kingsman is always aware of his surroundings.”  
  
“You’re not…” Eggsy glanced over when Harry spoke, the glint of ocean making Harry thirsty - for _what_ exactly he couldn’t be sure. “Uhm… thanks…” he looked down at the canteen in his scuffed and filthy hands, picking at the leather strap.  
  
“Thank me when we get to the drop zone, yeah?” Eggsy offered with a smile.  
  
“Yeah…” There were words on the edges of his teeth but he drowned them with a swig from the canteen, a band squeezing his heart and leaving him voiceless.

* * *

 

The landing zone was in the middle of a thatch of low trees and shrubs, a clear patch beside a shallow riverbed that Harry nearly threw himself into once they were there, relishing the chance to clean himself off and freshen his wounds with running water and soap.   
  
“We have most of a day left before the chopper should be here!” Harry said, peeling his clothes off. He was halfway to naked before he realized Eggsy was watching him.

“Do you want me to look away?” Eggsy asked, unbuttoning his shirt with a half-cocked smile.  
  
“No it’s… well _no_.” Harry stiffened. In the cool water with his dirty clothes soaked through and clinging to him like a second skin he felt better than he had in days, and maybe a little cocky. “We’re… both men it’s…” He shrugged a shoulder, an attempt to be noncommittal.  
  
“Uh huh,” Eggsy jerked his head. “Toss me your clothes when they’re clean. I’ll hang them up.”  
  
Harry did as he was told, yet again. He had always been good at following orders, at least orders from people he respected, and Eggsy had his respect - anyone that could shoot and move like his savior could… well he supposed they deserved his respect.  
  
Eggsy moved like a gymnast, fluid and certain, and Harry found himself enchanted - slowing in his motions to watch the other man run the bar of soap over his skin. The myriad of questions he’d clamped down on before rose to the top of his throat like bile, poisoning his tongue and leaving him breathless.  
  
“You know the curls are pretty cute,” Eggsy said fondly. “You should keep them, Hart.”  
  
“Who are you?” The words had left his mouth before he could stop them, watching Eggsy shake water from his short hair.  
  
“I’ve told you.”  
  
“Who are you _really_? How do you know my name? I never told you.” Harry walked closer. He tried to keep his eyes off the powerful muscles of Eggsy’s thighs and hips. They were equal now, naked and soaked to the skin in the middle of a Lebanese river, he didn’t have to worry about a fight - though if he was being honest that _wasn’t_ the reason Harry was sizing him up.  
  
“My name is Eggsy.”  
  
“But you’re Galahad? _I’m_ going to be Galahad.” Harry took another step, bracing his toes against the mud beneath them. “What the _fuck_ is going on?” He could be confident here.

“I made a mistake, Harry,” Eggsy said as he gripped Harry’s shoulder.  
  
“Have we met?” Harry murmured. “Somewhere?” He could feel that Eggsy knew him, that there was an easy familiarity in the stranger’s mannerisms, but the answers escaped him. “How do you know my name?”  
  
The moment hung between them, delicate and finite, and Harry felt the air rush between them and around them like the current of the river they stood in. Eggsy lifted a hand, touched the side of his face, and kissed him. 

As if _that_ was the solution.  
  
It was _A_ solution, he supposed. 

“Don’t ask me any more questions, okay?” Eggsy murmured into the space between their mouths. “Just… for now?”  
  
“Kiss me again and I’ll do my best.”  
  
“You know we’re naked and in the middle of a river, yeah?” Eggsy’s response came with a side of shit-eating grin. 

“I said kiss me, I didn’t say fuck me roughly on the riverbed.” He didn’t miss the delight that exploded onto Eggsy’s face.  
  
“You know somehow everyone else is always so much more forward than I am.”  
  
“Wait…”

“I wasn’t even thinking _that_ far ahead.” Rough fingers slid over the curve of his waist and Harry felt every inch like fire on the edges of his nerves.  
  
“Aren’t you… married?” He remembered the flash of a golden ring.  
  
“Oh I _really_ don’t think he’ll mind.”  
  
He didn’t have time to let that sink in very far before Eggsy’s mouth was on his and the space between them had been breached. He had never been kissed quite the same way, as if Eggsy knew every inch of the inside of his mouth, as if he knew everything Harry liked. _Oh_ the way the scrape of teeth against his bottom lip made his stomach leap.  
  
Fingers coiled into the damp hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him back far enough for Eggsy’s mouth to reach his throat - he gave half a thought to whether the rasp of teeth against his pulse point was the cause of the hitch in his diaphragm or if it was the run of practiced fingers down the ridgeline of his spine and the squeeze of a hand against his ass.  
  
“Fuck you’re beautiful.” He felt the words more than he heard them, rough and hot against his collarbone. He thought he should have said ‘thank you’ or something akin but then Eggsy was falling to his knees and a velvet tongue was sliding over the cut of his hip - and _all_ consideration passed from his mind when that same tongue curled over the head of his cock, a callused fist tight around his base.

He nearly forgot they were in the middle of a war zone, though he was fairly certain that a few more passes of Eggsy’s mouth and he would forget his own name. The flick of tongue against his glans, fleeting and hot, had him jerking his hips forward for more, and the raw laugh his eagerness pulled from Eggsy cut through him like a blade. He fisted a hand in the thatch of hair within reach, breathing ragged and sharp, and with a twist of Eggsy’s wrist and a long, hard suck he was coming fast with a low groan and praying his knees wouldn’t give.  
  
Harry sagged slightly, leaning on Eggsy’s shoulder for support, hardly daring to crack an eye to watch Eggsy clean his fingers with that _oh_ so talented tongue.  
  
“Been a while,” Eggsy said with a smirk at what Harry was _sure_ was his own private joke. “You been with a man before?” Another private joke, another wicked grin.  
  
“Not… quite like that no…” he managed, closing his eyes when Eggsy leaned to place a kiss against his thigh. 

A single kiss led to more, led to teeth and tongue against his skin and Eggsy’s rough words of encouragement and the unfamiliar feeling of river stone under his knees and his fingers sunk deep into the riverbed. He would remember this: the scent of warm, damp earth, the feeling of the cool night air, and the way Eggsy paid attention to his every need and desire without question - the sound of his voice, the slide of his skin, and the bite of his teeth that left him marked and sated.  


He would remember the heat that built between them, slow and deep, and how he shook apart under Eggsy's ministrations. He would remember every way Eggsy said his name: jagged and tumbling over uneven breaths, low and smooth like an oath on the back end of a moan. He would remember everything with excruciating detail.

Later, sprawled beneath the fading stars and purpling skies, Harry learned the lines of Eggsy's face once more and listened to him speak. Eggsy rambled, he had discovered, if prompted from time to time but the more he heard the more he realized that there was an entire _world_ between them.  
  
“You’re going to leave aren’t you?” He asked, sotto voce, and Eggsy’s chatter died on the air.  
  
“I am.” Came the answer Harry expected. “But don’t worry about it, okay?” Gentle fingers caught his chin and he lifted his eyes. “You’ll find me.”  
  
Harry thought his choice of words was odd, but let it slide.  
  
“How do you know we’ll meet again?” There was a strange pain in his chest, like a cord had been wrapped around his heart and pulled tight, and he could hardly speak for it.  
  
“Do you trust me?” Eggsy’s lips curled into a smile.  
  
“I hardly know you,” Harry answered. “When will you leave?”  
  
“Soon.”  
  
Harry wanted to argue, letting the thoughts build and swell like the clouds of a storm, but then Eggsy had kissed him again and any ability to protest was lost.

He fell asleep under the stars, with a laugh on his lips, and woke alone with a band of gold curled tight against his palm.

 

* * *

 

Years passed. Harry became Kingsman’s top agent. He fought harder, lead smarter, and prevailed when all others would have failed. When Arthur had his first bespoke suit made he ran his fingers over the pinstripes and thought of a young man in Beirut. He was flawless in his mastery, but he would never give away his secret - the whispered advice of a man in the middle of a desert city, and the desperate desire to see him again.

Lee Unwin. The name had seemed so familiar. Like a name from a dream. So he chose him, as if he was meant to. Harry found him at an officer's club, a simple nudge of shoulders that had lead to an offer of a drink that had lead to swapping stories over whiskey and gin.

And a job offer. 

"Yeah I'm looking for something new, I mean, my family lives really well right now but I'm working my way up still." The wicked tilt to his smile drew up a memory, dust soaked and bloody. 

"Well I think I could offer you that chance," Harry said. "For your wife and your son." 

Lee tossed back the last of his drink and slapped the glass back onto the bar. "Aight I'm listening."

That night Harry dreamt of cool river water and soft mud between his fingers.

 

* * *

  

He had never made a mistake like that before. When Harry Hart made mistakes people died. People like Lee Unwin, with his eager heart and young family, _died_.

In the years since his first mistake in Beirut he had more than made up for his lapse in judgement. He had taken his place as Galahad, just as his friend had told him. He had even taken in an unusual candidate for Lancelot’s replacement simply based on the recognition of his name.

Now he had to atone for that mistake, standing in the living room of government housing, listening to the broken sobs of Lee Unwin’s wife.

"What's your name, young man?" He crouched down before the young boy, a fondness rising in his chest. Sadness tainted his fond heart.

"Eggsy." The boy said without a hint of caution.

_"Maybe it's better if you call me Eggsy."_  

_"You know if you ever meet a guy named Lee Unwin..."_

_“My name is Eggsy.”_

A flood of dammed memories returned to him and he stilled before he spoke again, recovering. Lee Unwin. _Eggsy._  

When he left, taking the stairs nearly two at a time, he went straight back to his house and dug through his drawers until he found the velvet bag and nearly ripped it open. Laying in his palm, as warm as the Lebanese sun, was a golden ring that glinted when he rolled it between his fingers. 

Had he met Lee Unwin's older brother? How would he have known they would meet? 

_“You’ll find me.”_  


"No." Harry rasped and pressed the ring to his mouth. “I haven’t found you yet.”

 

* * *

 

He watched and waited. For seventeen years. He never interfered, patient and calm and _praying_ something good would come of his concern. Then, one day, a phone call.

The stars aligned.

"Who're you?" 

"The man who got you released."

"That's not'n answer..." Eggsy frowned on the steps of the police station. 

Realizations always came like a ton of bricks, didn’t they?

The ocean blue of his eyes, the sharp angles of his face, the flutter of dark lashes. There was no mistaking Eggsy Unwin for anyone else.  
  
Sitting with him in the bar was utterly surreal. The pieces were beginning to fall into place. If his mind wandered to the taste of Eggsy’s mouth, muted by river water, if he played up the story of Eggsy’s father just to see him smile, if he let a few words slip - it was only an exchange. 

Eggsy, if they were the same person, had done the same for him.  
  
And if he fought with a little more flair, a little more brutality, after the words _rent boy_ … well he couldn’t say it _wasn’t_ because of Eggsy. 

 

* * *

 

If there was any question of Eggsy’s ability as a Kingsman it didn’t come from him. Harry had seen him in action, that much he had decided, and knew there would be no stopping him. He was _needlessly_ impressed by Eggsy’s train trial. Eggsy was loyal, not only to Kingsman, but Harry… and that almost made the heartache worth it.

If his resistance was only token, a hand against his apprentice’s chest when their lips met after a few too many martinis, it was only because of propriety. What he wanted and what he _should_ have done were two different things.  
  
“Sorry I…” Eggsy murmured into the space between their mouths. “I’m a li’l drunk.”  
  
“No you’re not,” Harry whispered.  
  
“No I’m bloody not,” he agreed. 

Kisses, hot and sloppy, hands pushing against the straps of his holsters, the press of Eggsy’s cock against the thick denim of his jeans. Every time with Eggsy was a blur, all loose groans and the slick slide of lubricant. This time he branded himself with the memory of Eggsy’s hands on his shoulders, the way he rode Harry’s hips like a well trained jockey, and the smooth expanse of Eggsy’s neck before him.

This time he wouldn’t let go. 

And when he woke the next morning to find Eggsy still curled in the crook of his arm, sleeping soundly in the hollow of Harry’s throat, he felt a sort of satisfaction he hadn’t in years.

At least until Eggsy shamed him.  
  
What he wanted to say was ‘You didn’t trust me’ but instead he let his anger take control. He was hurt, more than he should have been. He had seen Eggsy in action, had seen him take out men with his bare hands… how could he have faltered on the dog?  
  
“I’ll sort this mess out when I get back.”

 

* * *

 

Galahad. Now he understood, standing outside a church filled with blood and blasphemy. Galahad. Eggsy became Galahad after him. After his death. 

Memories, steam fogged and stirring, of their night together seeped into his vision then. How he wished he wouldn't have been so harsh, so cruel in his words. He should have expected Eggsy to fall, should have know that he wouldn't become Lancelot... because he was Galahad. 

“This isn’t that kind of movie.”  
  
In the split second between the lift of the gun and the tilt of Valentine’s head Harry closed his eyes and embraced the fall.

 

* * *

 

"Take a drink," a voice was saying to him from the abyss, and a straw pressed to his dry lips.

His body felt heavy, thick and weighted, as if he were bound by the dark coils of some unseeable beast… Still, the fabric beneath him was soft and fine and the air smelled like antiseptic and disinfectant.

"Mm... Where am I?" He opened his eyes and his vision swam.  
  
“Safe. At the Kingsman manor.” He recognized his apprentice immediately. His apprentice with a new scar on his lip, with shadows under his eyes like the waters of the Caribbean, with a look of hope in the lines of his face. “Harry?”  
  
He relaxed, trying to ignore the vignette around his vision. This was not the first time he’d woken to Eggsy’s face above him. To Eggsy offering him water. To Eggsy as Galahad.  
  
“You’re Galahad now?” He rasped and Eggsy’s hand faltered.  
  
“Take a drink, Harry,” he insisted to replace his answer. 

They remained in silence after that, Harry doing as he was told but never taking his eyes off Eggsy’s face.

_This_ was the Eggsy he had met in Lebanon. The veteran Galahad with the hardened eyes and the beautiful linen shirt and the gentle hands. Eggsy Unwin, Kingsman agent.

_“Thought I'd lost you again."_  

He had meant the church. He had known about Valentine. All the pieces were finally falling into place. The question remained: what time period had Eggsy come to him from?

 

* * *

 

Harry’s recovery took a year. A grueling year of physical therapy and muscle building and through every step Eggsy was there - at every medical appointment, every therapy class. Eggsy with his gentle hands and sweet kisses and saintly patience.

Most nights he slept with Eggsy beside him, and if the nightmares came he could nuzzle his face into the warm skin of Eggsy’s shoulder and pretend nothing had happened. Some nights he heard familiar words whispered to cotton sheets instead of Eastern sands, others Eggsy tossed and turned until Harry wound him up in his arms and pulled him close. 

Rarely he slept alone, one arm stretched out into the cool space that Eggsy so often occupied. On those days Michelle came to see him with her daughter in tow. He suspected Eggsy had requested she check on him.

One night, a year and a half after his injury, Eggsy climbed in through the balcony with his jacket slung over his arm - not an unusual sight - and stood panting in the room for a long moment.   
  
“You’re drunk?” Harry asked mildly, taking note of the disheveled hair and rumpled shirt sleeves.  
  
“Harry Hart I want you to marry me.”

A golden band glinting in the sunlight, slender fingers working the metal like a bottle cap.   
  
_“Oh I_ ** _really_** _don’t think he’ll mind.”_

Eggsy seemed to take his silence as concern and continued, “I know I ain’t got much and I’m sure you’re gonna argue with me about bein’ too young or summat but I love you. I love you so fuckin’ much, Harry, and I want to… I don’t know what I want. I want you. Marriage is one of those things innit? The next step? A big party so everybody else can celebrate how much you love each other. I want my name in the paper that second time, too, right there beside yours Harry.” He dropped to his knee before Harry in his desk chair, face earnest. “Marry me, please?”  
  
He considering toying with him a moment longer, giving Eggsy a lesson on how to propose… but in the way of proposals… well it was pretty damned perfect.  
  
“Of course, Eggsy,” he murmured.  
  
Harry had expected a kiss, or perhaps a celebratory fuck, but instead Eggsy bumped their foreheads together and held them there - hands cradling his face.  
  
“Thank you.” Harry felt those words in his bones.

 

* * *

 

“Just a quick mission, they said,” Harry grumbled. They were pinned down behind storage crates in the middle of a Swiss warehouse - not exactly the best honeymoon.  
  
He supposed they should have expected something to be amiss. It wasn’t as if two Kingsman agents could go on their honeymoon and _not_ be expected to work. 

“You know you chose the Alps,” Eggsy said with a laugh on his voice, locking another clip into place. “I think it’s kind of fitting.”  
  
“You do, do you?” Harry responded dryly.  
  
“I mean you _do_ look dashing in your overcoat.” Eggsy peered around the corner and shot two guards, turning back to grin at his new husband.  
  
“We’re in the middle of business and you’re flirting,” Harry growled, pinning him to the wall. “When we get back I’m going to fuck you senseless.”  
  
“I look forward to it.” He relished the shudder of pleasure that warmed him even in the chill of the warehouse. “Harry look out!” He dove, tackling Harry to the ground, and they tumbled out of the way of the following gunshots, Harry’s pistol firing under his arm on the way down. He lingered, keeping Arthur down with his body weight, and glanced over his shoulder.

“You just saved my life,” Harry murmured.

“Fuck yeah, I did!” Eggsy looked down at him, brows lifting at the look in his husband’s eyes. “Close range sniper rifle rounds’ll put a hole in you the size of a baseball.”

“And I saved yours.” Harry was still looking at him with a devious mixture of lust and admiration, the flat of his palm resting on Eggsy’s back.   
  
“Fuck yeah, you did,” he breathed.  
  
“Focus, gentlemen,” Merlin chided. “Your target is 300 yards ahead.” 

“Got you,” Eggsy pushed himself up and pulled Harry to his feet. “Better hurry.” Harry’s only response was a swift squeeze of Eggsy’s ass on their way to the lead lined door.  
  
“Harry!” He reacted before he had registered the events unfolding before him, flinging Harry back. What happened next was a bit of a blur. He heard Harry’s voice calling his name, the hum of machines, and then… then it was blistering hot and his eyes were burning and before him were two men - one strikingly familiar on his back with a gun in his hands.

 

* * *

 

Eggsy burst from the machine, half naked and carrying his suit jacket in a bundle under his arm, to puddles of blood and broken bodies.  
  
“You know I don’t think I ever want to go back to Lebanon,” he said casually to the figure in front of him - stiff shouldered and prim to a fault.  
  
“You’re a bloody idiot,” Harry Hart said with emotion on his voice.  
  
“You waited all this time?” He felt joy bubble up in his chest. “For me?”  
  
Harry lifted his hand and uncoiled his fingers. Gold, polished and pristine, glinted in the raw lights of the laboratory.  
  
“You never told me.” Eggsy hurried forward and threw his arms around his husband’s neck. Expensive cologne and aftershave filled his senses, the fine wool of Harry’s collar familiar and warm, the weight of their bodies together almost ecstasy. “Oh god I thought I’d never see _you_ again.”  
  
Harry breathed out a sob, pressing a damp kiss to Eggsy’s neck. “I thought I’d lost you.” Harry kissed his mouth, his face, the river water still clinging to his lashes, kissed him until he was crying openly and then kissed away each saltine tear he shed.  
  
As far as homecomings went, it was pretty perfect.


End file.
